General: 'Of course' new Air Force bomber will be more than $550M per plane

Mar. 5, 2014 - 06:00AM
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Lt. Gen. Charles Davis (US Air Force)

WASHINGTON — The Air Force’s top military acquisition officer expects the cost of the new long-range strike bomber to exceed an expected per-unit cost limit — but indicated that has been part of the planning process.

“We get a lot of questions on [per-unit cost],” said Lt. Gen. Charles Davis, service military deputy for acquisition. “Is it going to be $550 million a copy? No, of course it’s not going to be $550 million a copy once you add in everything.”

While that $550 million figure may not be realistic, Davis said the service is trying to aim as close to the target as possible to keep extra requirements and untested technology from finding its way onto the platform.

“What it will be is $550 million in design constraints,” Davis told an audience at the Aviation Week Defense Technologies and Requirements Conference. “So if we’re going to set design constraints ... that limits the technology you bring in, it limits certain parameters and certain capabilities. By definition we have used a cost-controlled approach to that airplane to be able to curb some of the appetite we have for very new capabilities.”

After his speech, Davis declined to say what the actual cost for the bomber may be, but reiterated that he is pleased with the way the service is handling procurement of the platform.

“I’ll tell you if you start it out right and you constrain your design to a dollar figure, basically build around this design number for a unit cost, then by definition you constrain the unit cost for what would be the average procurement cost for the bomber,” Davis said. “And you also constrain the total procurement cost because there’s going to be less R&D you’re going to put into this if you’re going to say, ‘look I’ve only got 550 million to design around.’”